Welcome To The Hut Simon Built

The halfway house at Tower Links is as colourful as the character behind its creation.

- Kent Gray

Welcome to the best little halfway hut in Middle East golf, where they call a spade a spade and actually have one handy for promotional photo shoots.

It’s the house Simon Payne (and friends) built around the inherited watchtower between the 11th and 14th tees at Tower Links Golf Club, a sanctuary where you are actively encouraged to pause mid- and-post round to soak up the “realism of Ras Al Khaimah” and the “general down to earthness of our inhabitants”

Payne is justifiably proud of the course’s unique selling point, or USP to use modern parlance. Not that Tower Links’ Australian general manager is into fancy acronyms or all the swanky hullabaloo that comes standard with golf in these parts nowadays. Remember this is the “most down to earth club around where a spade is a spade in many respects”

“We’re trying to make things a little more real instead of being stereotypical and sterile,” says the 46-year-old Queenslander who has firmly established himself as one of UAE golf’s most colourful characters during his 12 years in the desert.

“I want people to come up here and feel like they can relax. It’s like a relaxed fitting shirt…you need to forego the stilettos and high heels and not compare it to all our expensive counterparts down the road where everything is so fast-paced and clinical. Take it for what it is.”